From Juliet to Sophie: I wish I could sneak away to your farm and have you coddle me. You'd let me put my feet on the sofa, wouldn't you? And then you'd tuck blankets around me and bring me tea.

From Juliet to Sophie: but Sophie,- what is the matter with me? Am I too particular? I don't want to be married just to be married. I can't think of anything lonelier than spending the rest of my life with someone I can't talk to, or worse, someone I can't be silent with.

From Dawsey to Juliet: It is called Was There a Burning Bush? A Defense of Moses and the Ten Commandments. She liked your margin note, "Word of God or crowd control???" Did you ever decide which?

From Juliet to Dawsey: That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's geometrically progressive - all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.

From Juliet to Sidney: I look a lively, dashing, haute-coutured (if this isn't a French verb, it should be) thirty.

From Juliet to Sidney: All I could do was scream, "How dare you! What have you DONE?! Put my books back!" Well, that's how matters started. Eventually, I said something to the effect that I could never marry a man whose idea of bliss was to strike out at little balls and little birds. Rob countered with remarks about damned bluestockings and shrews. And it all degenerated from there - the only thought we probably had in common was, what the hell have we talked about for the last four months? What, indeed? He huffed and puffed and snorted - and left. And I unpacked my books.

From Dawsey to Juliet: I have a job at St. Peter Port harbor - unloading ships, so I can read during tea breaks. It is a blessing to have real tea and bread with butter, and now - your book. I like it too because the cover is soft and I can put it in my pocket everywhere I go, though I am careful not to use it up too quickly.

From Amelia to Juliet: Once two members had read the same book, they could argue, which was our great delight. We read books, talked books, argued over books and became dearer and dearer to one another.

From Isola to Juliet: Men are more interesting in books than they are in real life.

From Eben to Juliet: We clung to books and to our friends; they reminded us that we had another part to us. Elizabeth used to say a poem. I don't remember all of it, but it began "Is it so small a thing to have enjoyed the sun, to have lived light in the spring, to have loved, to have thought, to have done, to have advanced true friends?" It isn't. I hope, wherever she is, she has that in her mind.

From Clovis to Juliet: My farm is a lot of work, and I did not want to spend my time reading about people who never was, doing things they never did.

From Clovis to Juliet: I got her to go for a walk along the cliffs one evening, and I said, "Lookie there, Nancy. The gentleness of Heaven broods o'er the sea - Listen, the mighty Being is awake." She let me kiss her. She is now my wife.

From Juliet to Dawsey: No sooner had I gotten used to carrying about a warm lump of baby than he stopped being one and started scurrying around on his own.

From John Booker to Juliet: I think you learn more if you're laughing at the same time.

From Amelia to Juliet: visitors offering their condolences, thinking to comfort me, said "Life goes on." What nonsense I thought, of course it doesn't. It's death that goes on; Ian is dead now and will be dead tomorrow and next year and forever. There's no end to that. But perhaps there will be end to the sorrow of it. Sorrow has rushed over the world like the waters of the Deluge, and it will take time to recede. But already, there are small islands of - hope? Happiness? Something like them, at any rate.

From Juliet to Dawsey: What a blight that woman is. Do you happen to know why? I lean toward a malignant fairy at her christening.

From Juliet to Sidney and Piers: "The SEA! It is everyhwere! The waters: azure, emerald, silver-laced, when they are not as hard and dark as a bag of nails."

From Isola to Juliet: Dawsey said it would not be polite, but I say that's the difference twixt men and women, not polite and rude.